Split
by kiwisdream2
Summary: Emmeline "Emma" Waldgrave has spent the past few years trapped in a parallel universe. She thought she'd seen it all, but even Emma never expected hope to come in the form of a supposedly fictional madman facing off a giant walking mantis. OC/SI
1. Prolouge: Emma

_"Today I'm going to give you some good ol' life advice. If ever you come across a 'mysterious', 'unexplainable', or 'tantalizing' glowing crack- big, small, or the size of a house; in an ocean, in a cave, on your bedroom wall—it doesn't matter the who why where or what of it, please use your common sense and do NOT go exploring. Don't step through it, don't peak through it, and don't you dare even dangle your arm or pinkie through it to see what happens — just ignore it. Pretend you didn't see it. Decide you've suddenly hallucinated, or if you have to think of something else, maybe wonder if you left the stove on or forgot to feed your cat and go check that. Just walk away. Do you want to be that one idiot who didn't listen and is now missing mystically missing a pinky because you couldn't resist tempting fate, and wiggled that pathetic appendage through an obviously ominous and dangerous glowing crack?_

 _No?_

 _Well good then. That at least means you're a little smarter than me if nothing else. Because I was that idiot, and I'm missing a lot more than my little finger."_

 _Kylie & The Rabbit Hole_ by Emma Waldgrave, Page 1

* * *

It all started when I was around about fifteen or so. Years ago now. I was on a camping trip over the summer with my family. Just me, the stars, an annoying know-it-all twelve year old, and a couple of my favorite lovable old farts with some tents and tools. It was my first proper camping trip, to be honest. Till then all my dad would let me do was camp out in our back yard because he was afraid I would get hurt or fall off a cliff or something. Which, well, in retrospect, he was probably right to worry. But back then I thought it was stupid. After all, at the time my _little brother_ was in the boy scouts. I thought he thought that I was fragile because I was girl, and I was upset over the favoritism. After enough begging every holiday and birthday, though, he finally caved. For better or for worse.

It was great, I'll admit. A fine last memory if nothing else. We didn't really live in a city, but that far out in the woods away from anything man made and lit up the stars where a hundred times brighter and stretched miles longer across the dark navy sky at night. My dad and my brother taught me some neat camping tricks, and useless knots I don't really recall, and we explored the woods together, moving camp every so often. My mom had her sketchbook out practically the whole time since the view was so good, too, even if she didn't like the hiking aspect of everything. I remember the smell of the moist air, the blue of the sky, and the feel of cool water going between my toes like it was yesterday. I sweated my ass off, and caught my first fish, and broke a flashlight—I loved every minute of it.

Towards the end of the week we found this cave and parked near it. My dad said not to go exploring without him, and like any good sane kid I listened. That's not where this story goes wrong.

It happens later, when we're actually in the cave, and there's this weird light down the tunnel no one else seems to see. I didn't even really need a flashlight once I saw it. I eventually asked about it at one point, and my brother brushed me off, but I just couldn't stop staring. It didn't give me any sort of good feeling, or tempt me in any way at the time. In fact, my stomach was in knots, twisting like a tense rubber band the longer I stared. My heart speed up, my palms sweated. I don't know why I thought about walking through it. Maybe I was just curious, or maybe I thought some bullshit about 'facing your fears', or wanted to prove to myself it was real since no one was agreeing with me, I don't know. It doesn't really matter anyways what I thought at the time. The point is, I stepped through it.

On the other side of the crack wasn't anything immediately shocking or out of this world, no, that would have been too easy. It was just another long stretch of boring old rock. I remember being relieved that the crack was harmless and even somewhat disappointed that nothing had happened when my initial instincts where proven wrong, wondering if I should climb a little further just to confirm there wasn't anything weird or off, or that I hadn't accidently discovered some old gold mine, or civilization of bat people or _something_. I stopped when I realized that the tunnel was darker on this end than before, and the lights that had been dancing on the cave ceiling on the other end of the crack where gone. Instead my flashlight was doing all the work at brightening up the dark tunnel.

Sure enough, when I finally gulped and turned around to check, the crack was gone.

* * *

I didn't panic, at first. The funny thing about humans is that when something truly shocking happens that we don't understand, or understanding it leads to bad, bad thoughts, we usually don't think about it. We make up excuses, deny that it ever happened in the first place, or shove it somewhere in the back of our minds and try to _forget, forget, forget_. When we can't do that we rationalize and become sudden optimists. I did the second.

Even if I'd never heard any noise behind me and was only turned around for a minute at two or most, I assumed everything was fine, and that there was a reason that the crack was gone. Like that there had been a normal opening before, but some rock had fallen down over it. Cave-ins are a thing, after all.

So I thought that before the rest of the cave fell through, it was best to find a way out of the tunnel, and then find my mom, and possibly dad and brother if they were out yet. If not, then we had to get them out, too.

It wasn't hard getting out. There was an exit less than half a mile down the tunnel that I climbed out of easily enough, and then I made my way around the mountain, searching for my family's obnoxious bright orange tent.

I walked around the outside of the cave twice before I accepted that it wasn't there. By then, I was finally panicking a bit. But I rationalized. My family had to be playing a prank on me. I had given them a hard time about going camping, so maybe they were getting back at me. Trying to make me scared. At that I got angry, and refused to move from the cave entrance we had parked our stuff outside of before.

 _Let_ them _find_ me _,_ I thought bitterly.

And then the sun set, and the stars came out, and they were gone for too long for it to be a prank.

I worried that they'd forgotten and left me, which didn't make sense considering how my dad wouldn't leave me on my own all trip. I worried that someone had hurt them, but why would they take all our stuff? I worried that maybe I was by the wrong cave, lost, but I hadn't walked far enough for that.

You can only survive so long without food or water. After the second day, I had to leave my spot. By then, yeah, I was panicking. Scared. Lost.

The hiker trail seemed so much longer by myself, but I was lucky to find it in the first place. I don't know long it took me to go back because I kept having to take pit stops to cry or try and rest or eat or find a river to drink from, but by the time I found some other campers I'm sure I was a mess.

I still didn't know what had happened so I cried, asked for help, and didn't care if they were strangers that could kill me. Told them my family went missing, and cried some more. They were nice people, a couple out in the woods for holiday, one that I'm sure I ruined by making them paranoid some killer was out in the woods. The police came eventually, and I spent more time crying and blubbering until the officers told me to sleep in their car while they took me to a nearby ranger station.

There was a search and everything at first. Everyone was very helpful, asked me questions, and I told them what I could remember. Why I was out here, who with, where I went, my home address, phone numbers, the names of my parents and brother, any relatives I knew, their contact information, or even some close friends, their parents' names, contact information for them again, etc, etc…

And then in that same calm and soothing tone they'd been using for every question and reassurance they apologized. Told me I was unwell. No one lived on this or that street, or it was a different person. The phone numbers where faulty, names wrong, and _excuse me miss we didn't find any people or abandoned camp sites in the woods._

I got angry, told them to search harder, I certainly wasn't crazy, and then they decided to tell me a really, really funny joke.

"I'm sorry, but an Emmeline Waldgrave, born 1990 on April 15th doesn't exist."

* * *

The people I've met over the years have come up with all sorts of ideas for why I was in those woods in the mountains. Maybe I was born up there to some kind of hippy family living off the grid, and went crazy after they died. Maybe I had some sort of abusive family I was running from who'd hit me in the head one time too many, and built up some fantasy identity while escaping them. Maybe I was some kinda of serial killer or rapist or what have you and this was my cover story.

I know the truth of what happened, but I made the poor decision of trying to tell it to people.

In some ways, I was lucky. As a minor, I was taken in by the government as an orphan. A soon to be kicked out orphan, but I started out with a roof over my head, and a place to shower.

Unfortunately, though, my obsession with proving I existed and fighting against the reality before me landed me in hot water pretty quick. I got to see a therapist who gave me all sorts of lectures about his theories, and because he didn't think my real name was Emmeline Waldgrave, I eventually started having fun and gave myself a new name every session. Sometimes I'd even make up a different background story or spoke with an accent just to fuck with him. He wasn't impressed.

I will thank the fucker, though. He never believed a word of the bullshit or truth that I spoke, but he did help me to stabilize myself. He also constantly questioned my logic, and made me doubt myself, which helped me to figure out what has really happened even if he didn't believe it.

I was in a parallel universe. I'm not sure where down my old family line some ancestors decided not to fuck each other, but even my grandparents didn't exist. A lot of famous shows were different or didn't exist. Other series were really popular. Different politicians, wars, etc. Some stuff was the same, but a lot of small cultural and popular media was just ever so slightly off. Dr Dickhead was actually impressed for once at how deep in my 'delusion' I was when I told him this. I think he wrote a paper on me once.

But while the sneaky fucker might have almost tricked me into thinking I was actually nutters at times and gave me panic attacks, his recommendation to 'write down my thoughts and feeling, it might help' is actually what began my career.

My therapist had a field trip with the material (aimed at middle schoolers, often about dimension holes, characters named after old family members and friends… it was Freud's wet dream, I'm sure), but I kept writing. Poems at first, then short stories, and finally adventure books. I'd always liked reading, and in a way it was like I got to breathe life into people who didn't exist anymore and actually be able to talk about things without people calling me crazy, so it was a great way to vent and be creative. I was no master author, but I bargained with my therapist that I'd let him read my stories and tear into my psyche if he'd edit for me, and eventually he was actually putting his PhD to use.

After a wasting my teenage years working instead of going to school like I used to, and spending all my spare time writing and hanging out with a guy like three times my age who constantly berated me, I actually got published, too.

It didn't take off right away, but I got a decent readership after my third book. I was no J.K. Rowling or Steven King, but I actually went to book signings which was really weird. I'd never expected to actually need a specific signature for anything outside of paperwork before, and wow was mine ugly.

Soon I was turning about 22, had an apartment, free to ignore any calls my therapist gave me, and for once it seemed like I had everything together.

And then I woke up to a crack in my bedroom wall.

* * *

At first, I assumed I was just in a really, _really_ vivid dream. I'd certainly had nightmares about the 'glowing crack of doom' before, and even written about it. It was certainly just as eerie and unsettling as I remembered it being, but staring at it certainly wouldn't change anything, so I eventually convinced myself to ignore it and went about my routine. Got dressed, showered, checked if it was gone while I put on my shoes but nope it was still there. I loitered for a bit, but soon grabbed my laptop bag and wallet, and firmly decided to spend a day at the local library and get some research and writing done. You know, _away_ from where the weird possible hallucination I was having was.

I was distracted the whole day, though, and anything I'd written worthless, mindless dribble. When I took out a book to read, I kept reading paragraphs over and over but not really processing them. Spilled coffee on this poor dude at one point, probably burning him. I don't even like coffee, either—I normally get sweets or a shake when I bother to visit the local café— so I don't even remember why I ordered it in the first place.

When I tripped over my shoelaces for maybe the fifth time that day, I considered seeing my therapist for the first time in months. Maybe I was really crazy, and he could convince me the crack wasn't real. Or just give me a nice shoulder rub, I don't know. _Something._

But instead I walked back to my closet of an apartment to confirm that, yep, the crack was still there. Still glowing radioactively and making my knees shake in fear. I briefly wondered if it would close if I threw a pen through it, and tested it, but of course it wasn't that simple. I considered testing if other people could walk through the crack, or see it- my dad and brother never had—but decided against it. It was cruel, and I didn't really have friends to test that on, anyway. I was a miserable hermit.

After fiddling with my phone I learned that pictures didn't work on the crack, which didn't board well for my sanity. When I videoed throwing a pen through the crack it just disappeared, though, to my relief. Kinda hard to disprove that, after all. I even uploaded it to online just for laughs, though no one would get the joke but me.

Then I went to sleep, and tried to _forget, forget, forget._

* * *

After a week, the crack still wasn't gone, in fact it was getting _bigger_ , and more… glowey-er. I wasn't getting any closer to finishing a draft of my book, either, but the deadline was still approaching. Even sleeping in a hotel one night didn't help much. It was just expensive.

To make things worse the crack was tempting me now. Well, not on purpose— it wasn't, like, serenading me or something, it kept to its original pulsating and threatening nature—but I was wondering if maybe I could go back home if I stepped through it again. I was starting to hope that maybe the past few years where some weird ass trial by God or something and now I could go back. I mean, he liked doing shit like that right? He'd practically drowned earth just to teach a family a lesson before making them repopulate earth. But, knowing my luck, I'd end up 22, homeless, and paperless in another foreign dimension where Justine Bieber is an up-and-coming politician. Where does a person who doesn't exist even go if they're not a minor and can't earn pity points with their youth? Maybe I could bring my papers from here but I still wouldn't be in any databases. People would just assume it was faked, and who knows if the legal language is even the same. I already have trouble proving my identity sometimes even now.

But could it really be any worse? If there's just a small, small chance I could get my life back, wasn't that worth the risk of stepping through the crack? And what happens if I leave it and let it grow? Is it somehow dangerous? Am I the only person that can stop it?

I finally ended up making my decision after around a month of bullshitting and pacing later. Or rather, had it made for me, just before the deadline for a recent script for a chapter of my book, while I was completely smashed and depressed. I'd made all sorts of plans up till then about how I'd withdraw most of my money in the biggest bills they'd let me use in case the money was the same wherever I went, bring my laptop so I could republish my stories, and shove all kind of miscellaneous things in a backpack to start off on, but in the end my cross over was pretty simple—I fell in. Tripped. Stumbled. Didn't see the post of my bed in time, and paid the price. At the time I had my wallet and phone on me, maybe some lint in my jacket pockets, but that was it. Didn't even get to leave a joke note saying 'the crack is real' for all my conspiracy theory fans.

But before I could start thinking clearly enough to regret all the shitty booze I'd drunk in a poor attempt to 'take my mind off things' I heard a noise. A weird, popping noise. Like someone's joints where cracking while they moved.

And then I realized that I'd broken into someone else's house. Flat out appeared out of thin air. I hoped they were looking for a midnight snack and hadn't noticed me. Explaining this would be shit sober, let alone drunk. I didn't want any police on my ass, either, so I'd have to stumble to a door or window or something. Preferably door since I remember my apartment had been on the third floor.

With a groan of effort I detached my face from where it was sticking on the floor, and began inching my way towards where I believed the kitchen or hallways was. When I looked around I noticed there was surprising lack of furniture, or really _anything_ in the room as far as I could see.

But just when I was starting to think maybe no one lived here, after all, hands shot out from behind me, gripping me around the shoulder and covering my mouth.

* * *

 **AN: Hope you enjoyed.**


	2. Chapter 1: New Reality

_Chapter 1: New Reality  
_

* * *

I screamed. Well, tried too. It was a bit muffled thanks to _the fucking hand over my mouth_ , and my possible murderer was ironically drowning out the sound of my shouts with what sounded like panicked shushes. The idiot also stupidly wasn't trying to keep me still, so I elbowed the fucker right where it hurts in an attempt scrambled away.

What I connected with felt like anything but human flesh. It was a mesh of hard and soft material, and I nearly ended up fracturing my elbow. Regardless of my attackers oddly textured abdomen, however, their grip lessened enough for me to fall out of their grasp as I heard them give a screech of pain alongside the sickening crunch my blow had caused.

I cringed at the sound, lead in my gut. Nothing was making sense, and through my hazed and violent escape attempt I turned around to face my attacker and try to give myself some context. Understand where I was, who was attacking me, _and exactly what kind of person felt like they were made out of hardened styrofoam when you hit them?_

I don't know what exactly I was expecting to see, but I felt the blood drain from my face as I sat frozen in the moonlight staring at the figure before me.

They were vaguely human, likely male, with shaggy hair and loose clothes. He was pale and gangly with twisted limbs, but where his skin was exposed he had green and yellow patches pattered like scales and a stick of celery. One of his hands had its fingers fused, the shape changing to look like long, thin, green crab claws. The side of his face was hard to see in the dark, but the outline visible looked like a mutated amalgamation of human and insect.

I didn't know whether to feel pity, fear, or disgust. I had expected my biggest enemy on the other side of the crack to be the police since I was paperless, but the truth was beginning to seem so much worse.

" _What are you_?" I asked, pouring all my fear and confusion into the phrase, a swirl of other questions on my mind. Was this what people looked like in this universe? Did some kind of virus break out, or evolution go wrong? What could have possibly created the creature before me?

"D-don't look at me!" The insect man hissed desperately, shielding his face with his hands and curling in on himself as he crouched away from me to a corner of the room. His voice was raw and fragile, and upon closer inspection I could see that he was shaking. Suddenly, I regretted my question. Obviously this man had meant no harm to me, the way he looked like a cornered animal.

"I'm sorry for hitting you." I apologized. "You really scared me, coming up behind me like that. Why don't we start over? My name's Emma. What's yours?"

The insect man's head slowly raised from above his arms, looking at me suspiciously. He brought his legs up so that he could sit more comfortably, still a distance away before hesitantly responding. "J-Jacob."

"Is this where you live?" I asked, scooting a bit closer and getting in a more comfortable position myself.

It took Jacob a few second before he decided to respond again, twitching when I inched closer.

"Y-yeah." He nodded, before quickly tacking on; "I'm sorry for… scaring you. I-I just didn't think and I knew you'd scream and draw attention—I don't even know _how_ you got in here."

I grinned at that. I briefly wondered if bug people would actually believe me about the whole popping into alternate universes thing but decided against in.

"Not quite sure myself." I lied, "I got totally smashed earlier and probably broke in then, sorry. Feeling a bit sober now though thanks to the adrenaline rush you gave me."

Jacob nodded, as if remembering something. "That makes some sense, I guess. I found you because of the smell."

"Rude." I frowned, and Jacob tensed again, making me feel guilty.

"A-Are you not scared of me now, though?" He stuttered, voice quiet.

"Maybe a little." I admitted.

"And why wouldn't you be, with me looking like this?" Jacob said sardonically, his face twisting even more as he rested it in his lap and crossed arms.

"What happened?" I asked, curiosity overcoming my manners. No matter what world no one likes to be asked about their defects, and god knows if there was even a cause for Jacob beyond simple birth mutation, but I still needed to know what I'd gotten myself into. All those earlier questioned still unanswered.

Jacob shuddered before he spoke, his arms tightening around his legs.

"I-I don't _know_. One day I just woke up and had these _scales_ that itched. And then it starts _spreading_ and _spreading_. Now I'm this… thing."

"Didn't you try going to the hospital?"

Jacob laughed, but it was shallow and empty.

"You don't _understand_."

I frowned at that, scrunching my eyebrows in confusion.

"Understand what?" I asked, but the only reply I got was silence.

Jacob didn't even so much as twitch.

"Please, Jacob, talk to me." I urged him.

Jacob said something, but it was muffled by the arms his face was still buried in.

"What was that?"

His head snapped up, giving me the first clear look at his face in the moonlight, unobscured by angle or arms. His eyes, both human and insect, where a flickering a bright red, the purples veins under his sickly skin straining. His jaw moved jerkily as he repeated himself.

 _"Get out."_

"What?" I said, confused at the sudden gruffness from the shy, almost childlike, man I was taking too moments ago.

 _"GET OUT!"_ He hissed, lunging towards me.

I couldn't do much other than obey, the adrenaline from earlier coming back full force and helping me to scramble towards one of the exits in the room.

I realized as I ran that not only was this apartment eerily empty, but nearly all the doors where boarded up or locked somehow.

 _"You just_ had _to come in here, didn't you?"_

I felt my blood freeze at Jacob's voice from down the hall, changing my method and reaching for one of the window curtains. I remember there being trees outside of my own apartment, and some neighbors had small balconies. Even without that, though, I could _probably_ survive a fall from the third floor. Might most definitely have to make the rest of my escape on a broken leg, though.

 _"It's not just what I look like that's changed. It's… these_ urges _I can't control."_

Underneath the curtains, however, was just more boards. Each and every one.

"You really didn't want anyone getting in, did you Jacob?" I muttered, panicking. The sound of the insect man's popping joints getting louder and louder. "Or out."

I couldn't afford to go back. I doubted Jacob had much control of himself now, whatever was happening with him. I reached for the boards, jerking them loose with the force of my muscles and body weight as I grabbed the planks and kicked off from the wall. The skin of my hands broke, splinters digging into my fingers and palms and I grunted through the pain, but eventually I pulled three boards off, and used the last to break the glass of the window.

I didn't look back to see how close Jacob had gotten, closing my eyes instead to keep calm as I wiggling my way out backwards of the window before I could chicken out, hissing when glass cut my hands. Underneath me where bushes and a long-ass drop, but it was my only hope. I tried to shorten the drop with my height, and felt the ghost of hot breath on my fingertips as I let go of the windowsill, bracing myself for the impact bellow.

My earlier prediction hadn't been wrong, and I landed at an awkward angle on one of my legs as I crumpled to the ground. Funny thing is, I've never actually broken a bone. I've had scrapes and cuts and minor fractures, but never anything too severe. Protective father, remember?

So I wasn't prepared in the slightest for when all the dizziness and bile that churned in my stomach hit me alongside the deep ache of pain. Black spots tinged my vision and the last thing I saw before they completely consumed my consciousness was the night sky and a vaguely familiar face.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks to everyone who's followed/falorited/reviewed so far! A bit short, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter anyway.  
**


	3. Chapter 2: Waking Up

_Chapter 2: Waking Up_

* * *

Dizzy. Disoriented. Drowsy. There were lots of words I could use to describe how I felt when I woke up.

The most obvious ones, however, would be confused and terrified. It didn't register to me at first that I wasn't sprawled on the pavement fresh out of a thriller-esque chase scene but instead laying in a hospital room until I'd jerk up and nearly ripped what seemed to be an IV out of my arm. Then the scent hit me and my vision cleared and I groaned because while I might be safe from insect men, a whole new danger awaited me…

 _Doctors._

Ones I had to explain myself to while hopped up on drugs with absolutely no idea what was considered normal in this odd parallel universe.

Skewed priorities perhaps—I was alive, after all, and they were likely my 'saviors'—but I'd seen more than enough psychiatrists to last me a lifetime the last time I'd crossed over and I certainly wasn't looking forward to any of the procedures that awaited me. Not to even mention the bill I'd likely be stuck with once I'd left this place considering my insurance was no doubt void. And then there was the possible deportation and identity issues.

I was pretty set on sneaking out after I'd stolen some crutches and found my clothes, until I glanced down at my leg and realized something… _odd…_ to say the least. In the place of a cast or splint or anything else a broken leg would require to heal were simple bandages. Thick ones, sure, but the kind you'd wear after you sprained an ankle playing volleyball. I'd jumped out of a _third story window_. The pain of it had even been enough to make me pass out. Sheltered child or not, a sprained ankle would not knock me out cold.

Sure enough, though, when I gave an experimental twist I only felt a slight twinge of pain. Not at all like the numb ache pain dulled by drugs gave.

Oh yeah, I definitely wasn't staying around to find out how much was on my bill. Besides, insect men and super healing hospitals? It was time to figure out what the hell kind of world I had ended up in.

* * *

A lot of things are easier said than done, but slipping out of the hospital wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd been expecting, even with my slight limp. It wasn't quite the same, but I chalked my success off to all the time I'd spent maneuvering around persistent social workers and quack shrinks back in the day.

Getting the IV out had been a bit of a pain and a mess, but I'd tucked the object away so that it wouldn't be found for a while. A nurse might come after me if they saw that I wasn't in my bed, but it wasn't as though I was in intensive care or anything. They'd probably assume I was on a walk and I doubted they'd go blind panic searching for me to scold. There were definitely more important things going on in a hospital than the unconscious girl with a sprained ankle. Assuming anything I knew about hospitals applied here, at least.

I still couldn't find my clothes but considering the location and the state I had arrived in I figured them gone and reserved to mourned the loss of one of my favorite jackets later. Instead I worked my way to one of the changing rooms and pulled on a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt around my size. Shoes where a bit of a harder find sense I had mammoth feet and couldn't wear heels, but luckily one of the nameless nurses/doctors I was thieving from had some spare flats I commandeered.

Getting my phone and wallet back, however, was a trial. I knew that whoever had found me had to have lifted my stuff to identify me and possibly call my emergency contacts (and god knows how it looked to them when all the numbers were wrong or the service on my phone didn't work). But I didn't have the first clue where my doctor(s) would've kept any of my items. Obviously it had to be discrete if they were holding it to prevent theft, but the idea of a hospital having some safe full of everyone's shit seemed a tad bit ridiculous. Maybe the doctors themselves held onto the items in a drawer at their desk, but I didn't know what my doctor looked like, let alone where their desk was.

I snooped around reception, supply closets, and had more than one close encounter in labs packed with complicated equipment worth more than I'd ever make, but no matter where I went I couldn't spot anything that screamed 'patient possessions.' Just drawer after drawer of miscellaneous items that I likely wasn't supposed to be rifling through and a few locked cabinets.

I was almost ready to give up the search, but eventually I found my way to a desk where most of what had been in my pockets was sealed away in labeled baggies. Bit of an odd security measure, but I didn't question it. I was just glade I didn't have to go full-criminal and attempt picking locks and safe cracking.

After I'd gotten the majority of my stuff, it was home free. I joined a group of lovely elderly women that had been visiting one of their friends to keep the more prying eyes off me, and once in the parking lot asked the gals for directions to the newest gas station. Luckily enough, gas stations existed in this universe even if I had been anxious about asking, and there was one just under a mile away. A bit of a pain to walk on my ankle, but less certainly less tortuous than I'd imagined. Plus, it gave me a chance to look at the scenery and play spot the differences.

I'd only moved to this town around three years ago, and being the shut-in I was now-a-days I hadn't exactly seen much of it, but oddly enough nothing really stood out on my stroll. Even the hospital as I had explored it hadn't been particularly exciting or different to other hospitals I'd visited in the past. Certainly not familiar as I hadn't visited my old-new neighborhood's hospital yet, and I'd never gone through locker rooms and labs before so I couldn't spot the differences if I'd tried, but nothing looked all too complicated or futuristic. Just white walls after white walls, those odd reflective floors, and the same sterile smell that clung to everything in all hospitals. I couldn't understand how they'd had such impressive medicine.

The roads as I walked them, too, just became more and more familiar the closer I got to the gas station. I spotted an empty lot where a thrift shop I visited once stood, a new restaurant in construction, and a few extra road signs but the differences ended there. Hell, even the gas station itself was part of a familiar old chain. BP certainly wasn't the first thing that I'd have imagined would survive the dystopian society I'd been picturing when I'd first talked to Jacob and been horrified by how disfigured he was.

And thinking about it, none of the people looked off, either. Admitably I had yet to have any real in depth encounters in this alternate reality, but even while exploring the hospital—a place where sick and hurt people go—I hadn't run into anyone else with scales or features nearly as odd as Jacob's. Was it dumb luck? Or maybe Jacob was part of a very small minority? He'd locked himself away for the safety of others and got upset when I mentioned hospitals, too, so there had to be _something_ there. Surely, at least, there'd be an article on it in the newspaper if Jacob was part of a group or minority.

But sure enough, once I'd gotten a hold of a copy of The Daily Mail from a stack in the corner of a yet again surprisingly normal and familiar gas station, I spotted nothing. Not on the front page, the back one, or the politics, sports, and comics sections. Even the obituaries gave nothing away.

And the poor cashier was looking at me like I was some kind of psychopath with how I'd tossed the pages all over the place.

Good thing I'd long sense lost any sense of self-consciousness.

"Hey!" I called out, watching as the guy suddenly found the wall and counter infinitely more interesting than me while no doubt wishing his shift ended soon. "Have you seen or heard about anything odd recently? Like a virus?"

"Uhhh..." He drawled, eyebrows scrunching in thought. Or maybe just discomfort. I wasn't great with facial expressions. "Not really, no?"

My own furry forehead caterpillars shot up at that. "You're sure? Maybe 'virus' is the wrong word… I met this odd guy, you see. Kinda looked like he was turning into a green bug."

"I haven't seen anyone in any costumes or special effects makeup recently, sorry."

"That's not what I meant…" I grumbled, but even someone as thick as me could tell by the startled and confused look on the cashier's face that he was telling the truth.

Well, there goes making a good, sane, first impression in this universe.

"Right. Thanks for you help." I huffed, making my way back out the store.

"Wait, your newspaper—"

I ignored him, letting the door jingle behind me as it shut and cut him off.

* * *

It didn't really take me long to figure out what to do next. It felt pretty obvious, to me at least, that Jacob would have the answers or at least lead to them. I had to return to my old apartment.

Maybe it would have been easier to find a library so that I could research all the details of this universe in a safe environment, but something in my gut told me I wouldn't find any of the answers I actually wanted there. Plus, despite how I'd nearly died today/yesterday/who knows when and how my future was looking anything but bleak, for the first time in a while I was oddly _excited_.

This whole past year I'd been running on fumes while trying to write my new book. I'd had an apartment, a job, a whole life finally free of all those years locked up in a room with my childhood therapist stuck on repeat telling me I was crazy, and yet I'd never really felt more miserable. I had thought maybe it was the lack of any close friends or the loss of my family finally hitting me now that no one was around to guide my feelings or fight against on the matter. I was even considering getting a cat or joining a yoga class to cheer myself up before the crack had appeared in my wall and consumed my every thought. Yet here I was, stuck in the similar situation as the one that had torn me from my family in the first place, and getting some sort of sick pleasure from it. I'd even been slightly disappointed earlier, when I'd first started to investigate and realized Jacob was more of an aberration than the norm.

Despite my preferred genre of literature, I'd never thought I was that adventurous or wild of a person— I barely even went outside since that one camping trip that had ruined my life— but I guess I was wrong.

It had been obvious, I suppose. Even my jerkass therapist had constantly pointed out how reckless and curious a person I was when he felt like ranting about my flaws and making me see reality. But still, I hated whenever that bastard was right. Made every word he's spouted about psychosis and delusions start to take root under my skin. And then I questioned myself. What if he _was_ right all along? What if, somewhere, I'm locked up in some crazy person's home and just don't know it? Is Emma even really my name? Did my parents, my little brother, ever _really_ exist?

Especially now. My life had gotten stagnant and boring with little to challenge or interest me while the deadlines for a book I didn't have ideas for grew closer, and life offers me the perfect exit and a mystery to solve? I could practically hear the Freudian deconstruction on my therapist's lips now.

But I shook it all off, all those fears. Ripped and tore at the saplings that formed before they could bloom. Because, ultimately, who could I trust if not myself? I couldn't betray everything I'd known after all this time.

Besides, Jacob himself had seemed like a sweet boy before he had turned on me. The way he'd locked himself up in that house, the pain in his voice when he'd come after me… I at least wanted to try and see if there was anything I could do to help him.

* * *

Returning to a copy of what was once my old apartment was creepy to say the least. It was brighter out now, mid-afternoon most likely, and the building itself wasn't that different from the one in my universe aside from a faded bloodstain and leftover glass shards(curtesy of moi) on the concrete outside and all the boarded windows to of Jacob's room.

The floorboards creaked, the carpet was stained, and the paint was chipping. All just like I remembered, depressingly enough. Only difference was how empty everything was, but with how Jacob was holed up earlier, I had already figured the apartment abandoned.

I didn't really have much of a plan by the way. Not in the slightest. I was an improvisation kind of gal, and beyond a mop I'd stolen from a hall-way closet and a general enthusiasm to discover the truth and help a mutant, I was going in blind and hoping for the best.

I figured it was forgivable, though. After all, I didn't have much to go on already, and even if I ignored the issue of my identity and told the police what I'd seen they'd just call me insane yet again or shoot Jacob dead.

I didn't want that, so here I was. Climbing up the dusty stairs to the room of a man who'd just tried to kill me hours ago and hoping for the best.

My hopes were dashed, however, when across the hall my eyes caught sight of a broken door, busted through and off its hinges on the floor. Jacob no-where in sight.

Perhaps he could have boarded himself up in another room in the apartment, but I doubted it. Wooden planks wouldn't be enough to keep him caged in with that strength.

I sighed to myself, unsure where to go now. Jacob could be anywhere—if he was still alive, that is. Police weren't the only ones with trigger fingers, after all, and with all that earlier talk about cravings it was only a matter of time till he attacked someone.

So much for being a hero, I suppose.

I shook my head, walking out of Jacob's room and back out into the hall over the broken bits of his door. I probably wouldn't have even have noticed it, if the faint and oddly familiar buzzing noise I heard from behind didn't make me turn around.

The door to the room besides Jacob's, what in my previous universe had been _my_ apartment, was open.

Furrowing my brows, I inched towards the door. There could have been a lot of things in there, I suppose. A homeless man, some kids mucking about—Jacob's previous occupancy here didn't truly make it off limits even if he would have preferred it that way. Yet still, I felt an odd foreboding creep up my back as that odd buzzing got louder and louder… almost the same as the eerie sensation I felt every time the crack came for me.

All of a sudden, not at all respecting the suspense and tension I was feeling in the slightest, the door flew open and a bright green light lit up directly in front of my face, blinding me for a moment as I closed my eyes with a yelp as I stupidly dropped the mop in my hands and it clattered to the floor.

"Oh! Sorry about that." A man's voice startled me out of my daze as I blinked out the spots in my vision and looked up at him only to see…

Matt Smith?

He flicked the small device that he'd blinded me with in his hand—which looked—well, it couldn't be—

 _What._

"Or not sorry. Did you know you are giving off some _very_ odd readings—"

He went off into some ramble. Something about Chronololopop whatever the fuck particles and something about time and dimensions and- _oh my god._

My therapist was right.

I was crazy.

* * *

 **A/N: If you couldn't tell by now, sanity is a sensitive issue for Emma.  
**

 **On a happier note, though, thanks to everyone who's reviewed/followed/favorited so far! I added a cover since last chapter which I hope you like. It's taken from a still of the canon DW cracks in the show which are much much smaller than the gaping maws Emma's walked through lol.  
**

 **Sneak peak: Next chapter chapter is creatively titled "The Doctor."**


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